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Wednesday, October 3, 2012

This is the second instalment of John Hazlewood's lecture on the Caroline Divines, given to the Institute of Spiritual Studies at St Peter's Eastern Hill in 1982. It was included in a book published by the Institute, Anglican Spirituality.

John Hazlewood on The Caroline Divines

Part 2: Lancelot Andrewes

Andrewes became a saint in his own lifetime. At least such was his
reputation from King James 1 to the humblest servant at Farnham
Castle, his main palace as Bishop of Winchester. I wish to quote
from a book written in admiration of him by Henry Isaacson
published in 1650 and interestingly titled, "An Exact Narration of
the Life and Death of the Late Reverend and Learned Prelate and
Painful Divine, Lancelot Andrewes, Late Bishop of Winchester,
Which may serve as a Pattern of Piety and Charity to all godly
disposed Christians." "To draw to an end of deciphering his virtues and endowments.
It may be truly said of him that he had those gifts and graces,
both of art and nature, so fixed in him, as that this age cannot parallel him; for his profundity and abyss of learning was
accompanied with wit, memory, judgment, languages, gravity
and humility, insomuch that if he had been contemporary with
the ancient Fathers of the Primitive Church, he would have
been, and that worthily, reputed not inferior to the chiefest
among them." (In “Anglicanism” More and Cross p. 772)

Andrewes was born in the Marian Persecution period and his first
experiences as a young man at Cambridge University would have placed him more on the Puritan side than on the traditional.
He always held several livings together and as Chaplain to Queen
Elizabeth and Master of Pembroke College his studies were riding
ahead of his companions. He was criticised for a sermon about the
power of Absolution belonging to the priest and bishop alone and not
to all the congregation. His first great act was to rescue the
manuscripts of the last three books of Hooker's monumental "Laws
of Ecclesiastical Polity" and to have handed them over to his friend
Archbishop Usher of Dublin for eventual publication. After he had
been made Dean of Westminster he was a chairman of one of the
committees set up by the King to produce an English Bible.
Andrewes’ committee was set to deal with Genesis to 2 Kings. This
glorious jewel of English literature and sensitive translation was
produced in 1611 and became the quarry for the piety and the poetry
of many of the authors of the century as did the Book of Common
Prayer.

In 1605 he became Bishop of Chichester, 1609 Bishop of Ely and
in 1618 finally Bishop of Winchester until his death in 1626. He was
not the best bishop by today's standards, usually being in his diocese
at best three months a year. The rest of the time he was travelling
with the King or sitting in the House of Lords or on the High
Commission. S. R. Gardner's picture of him is well known in his
"History of England" 1603-1642, P. 120: "Going in and out as Andrewes did amongst the frivolous and
grasping courtiers who gathered around the King, he seemed to
live in a peculiar atmosphere of holiness."

He always preached before the King at Christmas, Easter and
Whitsunday and his sermons were famous and published. His style is
not anything like ours today, but they were very learned, sometimes
contentious but generally emphasising the dogma of the King's
Divine Right, the orthodoxy of the Creeds, the need for order and
solemnity in liturgy, the necessity for penitence and absolution. His
attitudes are well summed up in Paul Welsby's biography:

“So far as worship is concerned, Andrewes deplored the
neglect of the Sacrament of Holy Communion, alleging that
some communicate only once a year. If men do not
communicate as often as the primitive church, they should do
so as often as the Church celebrates. He referred to the Puritan
practice of forbidding the use of the Lord's Prayer in public
worship. Horton Davies in his book "Worship of English
Puritans" p 69, 99 has described the use of the Lord's Prayer as
the crux of the liturgical problem . . . ‘The history of this discussion seems to show that the more radical Puritans and
Separatists regarded the Lord's Prayer as a pattern and held it
was not intended that it should be repeated. Andrewes
regarded this practice as "a most fond invention . . . never once
dreamed of before.'” (Paul Welsby – Biography p.5 SPCK)

He is remembered today for his remarkable "Preces Privatae", a manual of prayers that set the pattern for Anglican private devotions
even to this day. A contemporary, Bishop Buckeridge, said that this
book of prayers emerged out of his personal habits of prayer.
Andrewes' life was a life of prayer and he would spend five hours a
day at it. This is done in an orderly manner in a set out method,
system and order. Morning and evening every day of the week. His
sources are catholic indeed. There is deep penitence and humble
faith. Concerned intercession and repeated acts of Faith, Hope and
Love. Writing in 1903 Brightman said,

"They represent as a whole what he was and what he aspired to
be,- what men knew of him and what they could know . . . They
show us a background, the spring, the force, and inspiration of
his public life and activity, the root of what men recognised in
him: his piety, a serene and filial faith, a profound penitence, a
living hope, a passionate love of God and a longing to be true
to all he knew of Him; a large, detailed, imaginative
charity . . . a gratitude alive to all God had done for him . . . and a general appreciation of life, its joys and its sorrows, and
a belief in the possibility of its consecration. " (Preces Privatae by Lancelot Andrewes – Edit. Brightman SPCK 1903)

We know that Andrewes forgot his friends and his theological
principles in his work on the High Commission and most notably
voting for the divorce of Essex against the ruling of his archbishop
but, of course, in agreement with the monarch. He was shameless in
procuring good livings for his rather less worthy brothers. He
entertained lavishly, the cost of one such entertainment at Farnham
Castle for James I was between 2,300 to 2,400 pounds. He was also
very charitable towards the poor. He was a skilled and eminent
controversialist against Roman claims as put forward by Bellarmine
and while heavily involved in the muck of the contemporary power
base, he nevertheless built up the reputation of sanctity. I leave his
story with words that are truly his and might be written truly for
most of us, From the "Preces Privatae", Wednesday morning:

"O Lord thy goodness leadeth me to repentance:

O give me some time repentance to recover myself
out of the snare of the devil